Rueil-Malmaison (France), March 18, 2004 - Schneider Electric announced today the acquisition through a transfer of assets of Wangao, a private Chinese company that develops and manufactures innovative automatic power transfer switches solutions. The automatic power transfer switches solution developed by Wangao is a very competitive offer dedicated at improving the stability and the reliability of power supply, through the monitoring of power supply circuits and the automated transfer from an energy source to another when necessary. Wangao, founded in 1999, is a family business located in Tianjin. The company generates sales of around EUR 8 million with 110 people.
“Because power reliability and stability is very important in industry as well as in buildings, the demand in automatic power transfer switches is growing fast,” said Russell Stocker, Executive-Vice President of Schneider Electric’s new Asia Pacific Operating Division. “Wangao will be one of the elements of our conquest strategy of the intermediate market, through the offering of local competitive solutions meeting our high quality standards.” Via its worldwide network, Schneider Electric may distribute the technology developed by Wangao outside China under the Merlin Gerin brand name. With this acquisition, Schneider Electric pursues its strategy to broaden its product offering in energy reliability solutions and to conquest the intermediate markets with competitive local offerings.
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With 74,300 employees, Schneider Electric generated sales of EUR 8.8 billion in 2003 through 13,000 sales outlets in 130 countries.Visit Schneider Electric at www.us.SquareD.com , www.us.telemecanique.com or www.us.schneider-electric.com .
